This is post #3 in my ongoing series of questions from the webinar on “Getting started as a freelance translator” that I presented for the American Translators Association earlier this month.
A participant asks: How can I prepare for the ATA certification exam?
Short answer: Order a practice test from ATA; at $50 (including return of the graded copy of your exam) as opposed to $300 for the real exam (not including return of the graded copy of your exam), it’s a good investment and a good indicator of your chances of passing the real exam.
Longer answer: If you’d like to take the ATA exam, you need to do a few things:
- Join ATA
- Make sure you meet the eligibility requirements for the exam. If you don’t meet them and you do not currently work as a translator, your most expeditious route is probably to get a translation certificate from an approved program; there’s a list on the ATA website.
- Gather (buy, borrow, check out of the library) enough paper dictionaries and reference books for the exam. At present, ATA does not allow candidates to use any electronic resources for the exam, but you can use all of the paper dictionaries that you can carry. When I took the test, the woman next to me brought a rolling suitcase full of dictionaries covering a variety of subject areas.
- Familiarize yourself with the error marking framework for the exam, the tips for candidates and the other resources on ATA’s website.
- Take a practice test and see how you do. The magic number is 17; with 17 or fewer error points, you’re in. If you take the practice test and get 20 error points, you probably have a chance of passing the real exam (this happened to me) but if you get 40 error points, well…
And a few random thoughts on the ATA exam:
- I am ATA-certified and find it to be a boost for my business. At the very least, someone browsing the ATA online directory is likely to call the certified translators first. I do a pretty brisk business translating official documents for individual direct clients, partially because I’m one of only three ATA-certified French to English translators in Colorado. However, the highest paid freelancers I know, people in the 40+ cents per word market, are not certified. You can definitely earn a very healthy income as a freelance translator without being certified.
- As was recently discussed on Jill Sommer’s blog, there are lots of issues with the ATA exam. The handwriting factor is huge; personally I don’t hand write anything except my grocery list, and I found it excruciating to hand write the whole exam. In nearly a decade as a freelancer, I have never hand written a translation other than the ATA exam. Ditto with paper dictionaries; most of us have moved over to entirely electronic terminology resources and it’s tough to translate without using them. When I took the exam, the general passage was much, much harder than the specialized passage, and I felt that the grading standards were heavily swayed toward a fairly literal, word-by-word translation; the kind of translation I try to avoid when I translate for publication. ATA is working on a lot of these issues. And to be fair, it’s hard to deal with some of them (for example the long turnaround time to get your exam graded) without raising the price beyond most translators’ means.
- The pass rate for the ATA certification exams is very low. ATA does not release exact statistics, but the pass rate seems to be about 20%. However: a) this is comparable to, or even higher than the pass rates for similar exams such as the Federal Court Interpreter certification exam. Some court interpreter certification exams even have a pass rate around 5%. b) if you fail the ATA exam, it means that two separate graders agree that you failed. Every exam is reviewed by two graders to start out with. If they disagree on the result, the exam is then sent to another grader for a third review. So you cannot fail the exam based on only one person’s assessment of your test. c) I would be interested to see the pass rates broken down by language. Anecdotally, it seems that some languages’ pass rates are much lower than others
- If I were to give ATA some business advice, I would advise them to start producing preparation materials for the certification exams. I think that this would serve the twofold purpose of making the exam and the grading process more transparent and of generating revenue for ATA. For example, ATA could publish preparation manuals of old exams with graded example translations. They could even offer preparation courses. Hey, if people will spend several thousand dollars for a bar exam preparation course, ATA should be able to charge real money for a translator certification exam preparation course.
Other thoughts?
Hi Corinne,
As a Chinese > English translator, the topic of ATA Certification is near and dear to my heart – mostly because such certification does not (yet!) exist despite the sustained efforts of dedicated Chinese Language Division members.
I think the idea of the ATA developing exam preparation materials is genius. As any good student knows, preparing for an exam can be (a) useless and unrepresentative of one’s actual capabilities OR (b) a valuable tool for assessing and sharpening one’s skills. The outcome, of course, depends on the nature of the exam and the nature of one’s preparation. Were we to have preparation materials similar to those for professionals in other fields (lawyers, architects, nurses etc.), we ATA members would do ourselves a great favor by improving the professional image of our industry and by properly grooming the next generation of language professionals. Time to contact the Certification and Professional Development Committees…
Cheers,
Katie Spillane
—————————————–
Chinese – English Translator
spillanetranslations@gmail.com
Tel: 718-717-2588
Fax: 718-521-5547
Great tips and thoughts, Corinne.
I was considering working towards the certification, however, because of the handwriting requirement I don’t think I will. Several years ago I broke my arm in an accident and now have a plate and 4 screws in my ulna. My arm is better than new, except for my handwriting, which has suffered greatly such that it’s illegible by anyone other than me. However, that has not hindered me in my translation work or any other of my endeavors. I am pretty certain that I am not the only translator out there with some physical limitations regarding the handwriting requirement and I think ATA should take this into account (OTOH I’d hate to ask for special accomodations just for me).
“If the college or university requires me to take a standardized test for
admission, can I take that test with reasonable
accommodations?
Yes. Note that such standardized tests, including SAT (Standardized
Admissions Test), ACT (American College Testing), LSAT (Law School
Admission Test), MCAT (Medical College Admission Test), GMAT
(Graduate Management Admission Test), GRE (Graduate Record
Examination), and TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), are
typically administered by organizations other than your college, university
or trade school. These organizations must allow you reasonable
accommodations necessitated by your disability. Because each
organization may have different requirements or processes for requesting
the accommodations, it is crucial that you research these requirements and
meet any deadlines for submitting supporting documentation long before
the actual test day.”
http://www.disabilityrightsca.org/pubs/530901.pdf
Good luck!
Interesting. I hand-wrote my final exams for my German university degree, but that was ages ago (1996). And I agree, it really is odd to judge someone using handwriting, when they really are almost always typing their translations.
I also wonder what it means to “fail” a translation test. Given that there is no such thing as “the right translation” (there are many wrong translations), I just wonder what failing means ? Does that mean that the translator did not get the meaning across, or did not get enough meaning across ? Even those really bad Japanese-English translations of the 1970s and 1980s got meaning across (while being comical). I really wonder what it means to “fail” to get meaning across.
Or is it that the graders just want to create artificial elitism by failing 80%+ of the people who take the test ?
I’m actually probably in the minority about the importance of being certified. From my experience working on the vendor-side for 6+ years, for the most part, PMs at agencies don’t really care (it’s far from being the most important thing they look at), and end-clients don’t know any better. For one, ATA certification is an American certification, so translators living outside of the US are usually not included in this group. The reverse is true; clients based outside of the US aren’t looking for translators certified in a different country. Then there’s the issue of the subjects being tested. If a highly specialized translator in the field of, say, mechanical engineering, doesn’t pass the exam because he/she never translates “general” texts (or medical/legal/scientific or any of the other “specialized” texts), does that mean that he/she is not a good translator?
My personal opinion is that ATA certification only has prestige amongst other translators. Clients know quality when they see it – they don’t need certification to tell them that. And the fact that the ATA requires one to earn “points” every year to maintain their certification is, IMHO, just another money-making ploy. And if you let your membership lapse (which I did for several years when I wasn’t translating), you lose your certification (which I did).
Sorry, but I don’t buy into it anymore.
I have a coworker who needs to be certified by ATA in Spanish for her job. English is her second language, she was born in Mexico. She has taken the ATA exam twice and failed. She got closer the second time. Does anyone know of tutors for this kind of thing? Either in the Denver area or online?
Laurie, thanks for your comment. I’m sending you a reply privately as well, but in general the only prep materials for the ATA exam are the practice tests that ATA sells. Those are helpful; they cost $50 which includes a graded copy of your exam (which you do not receive for the real exam unless you pay a substantial review fee). Personally, although I am actively involved with ATA, I do feel that this is a deficit in the certification program. Imagine if other professional certification exams (CPA, medical board exams, etc) offered no prep materials other than practice tests… just a thought!
Laurie,
I have a question.. We are a start up translation company, i notice a lot of translation companies have ATA certification logo on their website, but ATA does not offer certification for companies but only for translators, Please clear this for me please and if it is posible for me to get the ata certification for my company
I am an ATA certified translator.
I can help your friend prepare for the English to Spanish ATA exam.
I live in NY, but we can work through e-mail and Word attachments
Write to me at: enespanols@aol.com
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I live in California and I have been giving some thought about taking the ata exam. I was born in southamerica and english is my second language. I would like to know if I could get any kind of help on how to get ready for the exam.
Thanks in advance! Be well!!
ATA is the ultimate rip off. They force you to pay their membership fee in order to sit the exam, then you have to pay your registration and exam fee. You sit the exam and have to wait 16 weeks for a result. I followed up after 12 weeks as the person handing out the exam said it usually took less than the 16. I left messages, sent emails, to no avail, nobody had the decency to get back to me. The person answering the phone said I had to wait the full 16 weeks and there was nothing I could do. I called on week 16 and inquired why the wait was so long. I was told the graders are “volunteers” who receive a small payment. So imagine their incentive to get the exam graded or the interest put into it. I had to pay the full price and yet my exam is graded by someone who is not even properly paid to grade it and is allowed to sit on it for 16 weeks.
I wish there were another certification program that would put them out of business; they are money grabbers of the worst kind portraying themselves as the voice of interpreters and translators.
Hi Corinne!
I decided to join the ATA… as a Brit! Simply because I want to be better informed on what the ATA and its members are doing, have access to the CPD options and excellent ATA Chronicle, and also, potentially, go for CT status. Do you have any idea what the ATA’s stance might be on British English? Or would it be a great chance to show my ability to put a Z in the right place? 😉 (I know it’s more than that, just joking… 🙂 ).
Best,
Rose
Thanks Rose and congratulations on joining ATA! To be honest, I’ve never heard any discussions of UK English within ATA, so I think you need to be the pioneer!
Ooh, that sounds fun. I’ll ask. There’s an option to take the exam in Sweden in April. A certain friend of mine may be interested in Polish to English, too, but it doesn’t appear to be on the agenda. I’ll give them a call next week (trusting they can understand English from the old country… ;)).
Just wanted to update my info: I am still an ATA certified translator, but my email now is: adelgado@enespanolservice.com for those interested in talking more about preparing for the English to Spanish ATA exam.
Is the Spanish-to-English exam ever offered–as we used to say in my US Army days–OCONUS (Outside the Continental United States)?
I’m an English prof (ESL/EFL-type) in Taiwan’s military academy system and will probably get back to CONUS around Feb 2015 during Chinese New Year–a whirlwind vacation to San Antonio & Austin, TX. I’d be willing to route my flight to somewhere I could take an exam, jet lag and all. However, OCONUS could be better (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, etc.).
Thanks!
Dan Villarreal, ATA member in Taipei, Taiwan
Licensed Court Interpreter #315, Spanish-English, Texas (Master designation)
Retired Bexar County (San Antonio, Texas) court interpreter
Listed on LinkedIn as Daniel Steve Villarreal, Ph.D. in case anybody would like to connect
Corinne,
I joined the ATA just last weekend, and I find your thoughts very helpful. I currently have my bachelor’s degree in Spanish, and I am looking to find a job where I use it more, (I don’t speak a lot of Spanish in my job now). Translation and interpretation has always fascinated me, and it is my dream to do it to see if it’s really something I want to do long-term. I read the eligibility requirements on taking the exam. For me, it stating I am required to have two years of translation experience before I can take it. This was a little discouraging to me. I didn’t know if I need to take another certification first? I currently have no experience with translation, thus no clients. Just curious as to what my next step should be. I already ordered the practice exam as well for the ATA, to see what I’m getting myself into haha.
Thanks!
Thanks Megan and congratulations on exploring translation! Taking the ATA practice test is a good first step; that will give you an idea of whether you’re in the ballpark of passing or not. I’m not on the Certification committee, but I believe that you can also take the ACTFL reading and writing proficiency exams to be eligible for the ATA exam. Let me know if that answers it!
Excellent, thanks so much!
I have taken the exam two times (plus two practice exams) which I have sadly not passed. It is non-reflective of reality to hand-write, to not allow memory-based electronic equipment, and to not have an organized set of field specific exams. I mean, would a cardiologist have to pass the same test as a urologist? That would be silly. So, why does a translator specializing in legal documents be tested with the exact same exam as a translator working in the entertainment, medical, or even oil industries? These fields are world apart. That’s the ATA exams for you.
I received a translation on photo-voltaic cells and solar panels. I would never accept a translation on such topic in real life. It is simply not what I do. They should simply break it down into different areas or fields just as medicine is, to give one example, and provide a certificate specifying that the translator’s specialty is such and such. That is much more coherent.
When you take the ATA exam, you have to translate two passages: one is a general text and the other could be a text with technical, scientific or medical content or a passage with financial business or legal terminology. You choose the one you have experience on or interest in. All the passages (including the ones with special terminology) “have been chosen in such a way as to avoid highly specialized terminology so, even though there are some challenges, these can be met with a good dictionary.” When you take the SAT, you can’t refuse to take the Language section because you plan to become an engineer and not a teacher. The ATA exam is not an easy exam. I did not pass it the first time either. Don’t give up. Contact me at adelgado@enespanolservice.com and maybe I can help you discover what is preventing you from passing the exam.
Good evening!!! I am looking into getting certified. I thought that in order to be able to translate documents for customers I need to be certified. In this article you mentioned that uncertified translators make a lot of earnings…so you do not need to be certified to work as a translator? I am extremely confused about this. Morena.
Hi Morena; in the US, for better or worse, there is no barrier to entry in the translation profession!